I reply (WS): I would not pay that much attention to what people say - people use words they way they use canned food (for thought) - because it is easily available, not because they are particularly attached to them. Instead, I'd pay more attention to what they are actually trying to say.
A few years ago I met a guy in a run-down laundromat. This was the only lit establishment at that time (after 11PM) in this area and we were the only two people inside - thus an easy target for drive-by shooting (which happened often in that area). We started to chat, and soon the guy went on a rant liberally spiced with the n-word. A textbook example of a racist redneck, one may add. Except that instead of drawing such a conclusion, I tried to listen to what he really wanted to say. He did most of the talking I did most of the listening. It turned out he was a construction worker from West Virginia who came to Baltimore looking for a job. He was scared of the city (about 70% Black) and violence (we have one the highets hoimicide rates in the nation). At certain point, seeing no reaction to his racist diatribes on my part, he paused for a while and then said that he worked mostly with Black guys and he did not consider them to be "n-words." They were his buddies. Finally, he said that he did not want me to think of him as racist, he was just scared of the city and the gang violence.
I am pretty sure that many 'militia types' belong to the same category. These folks did not read Freud or Habermas to learn the proper language to express their discontent. They are unhappy, and they express their unhappiness with the canned words they find around. And what they find around is racist, sexist, or just plain crazy. Mainly because the only people willing to listen to them are rabid right-wingers and kindred crackpots - as most progressives profer to engage in the conspicuous consumption of intellectual products (including Habermas).
So my answer to you first question is: let us at least listen to what tthese folks have to say - I mean they themselves, not their leaders interviewed by lazy journalists. Some of them might be incurable bigots, but many other may simply use language the same way they use junk food - because it is the only thing available to them. I think many of these people can be attracted to 'our side' if 'our side' does not shun them down beacuse of their foul language.
As to the second question, I tend to side with the "garbage can" school of social behavior - people tend to act first, and then manufacture rationalizations of their actions from the scraps of "canned cultural products" (what they hear in teevee, church, or from other people). What matters is that some people are ready to act, not what rationalization they use to justify their action. Both, the Quaker and the Militamen tax resisters are readu to act against the government (not too many middle class folks are ready for that !) - and that is all that matters, not the rationalizations they make for their actions. I personally pretty much prefer the Quaker's rationalization, but I also think that the Militiamen's rationalization may change, if given the right opportunity.
Well, perhaps I've seen to many 'communist agit-prop' shows featuring various 'bad characters' being converted to the cause :).
Regrads,
Wojtek Sokolowski